era of gentlewomen

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
-Douglas MacArthur

Preface

Another blog inspired by the beautiful Cleo Sol. Cleopatra Zvezdana Nikolic was born on March 24. I’m just finding out my favorite artist was born three days after my dad. Gentlewoman remains on repeat. So does Queen.

My name, Anjanette Rebecca, means Gift of God’s Grace. Gift of God.

Three years ago, I met an elder on a forest bathing retreat. I shared the meaning of my name with her. I shared this before, lol. I wish I could find her. I would like to speak with her, but my phone lost all its contacts out of nowhere.

When I shared the meaning of my name with this fairy goddess, she told me to start acting like it. Well, damn. I found it funny until I didn’t. My new friend was absolutely right.

Centering others wasn’t what my mother taught me. My mom is always right, nothing to fight about. My mom roasted me on the daily when I stepped out of bounds. That kept me on my toes. Did it stop me from running amuck? No. My mommy would just pick the twigs from outside out of my hair when I returned home at curfew. Before sunset.

Barefoot Contessa, The Wild One, Cookie, Princess and the Pea. I loved the nicknames my mother called me. My mother never called me out of my name. I didn’t do that to her, either.

Only, my full name is Anjanette Rebecca. My middle name was supposed to be my first name. My dad told my mother, how about hell no. I’m very surprised my fiery mommy changed her mind. My mother loved & adored my dad. That’s why. Submission is not a sin, it’s a blessing. My parents balanced each other out.

Anjanette was my mother’s first choice after that. A name meant to honor my mother’s favorite aunt Annie, who taught my mother to play piano. I have that piano in my home. Jeannette is the middle name of my favorite people. My great-grandmother is reflected in my middle name, Rebecca. A midwife told me Rebecca has strong biblical ties; it means faithful wife. I haven’t seen that meaning, but I know about Rebecca & I’m reading about her again, which will halt my thought processes.

The rabbit hole is not on my Bingo cards this morning. Maybe later this evening. Maybe? yes. Forensics is the absolute love of my life. John Jay School of Criminal Justice was my first stop before I became a nurse. The school was a block away from my first professional job. The place I witnessed 9/11/2001. The place I experienced the Northeast Black of 2003, pregnant with my son. My 2nd Gen Z baby. My firstborn, my daughter, is also a member of Gen Z. People call Gen Z crazy. I call them geniuses. The Gen Zers I know, don’t play the Gen X game of following all the rules that make no sense.

My children are well above my pay grade. Both left-handed, both Talented & Gifted. Both incredibly compassionate & lethal if provoked. If my daughter even caught a man, her age looking at me? Oh boy. My daughter calls me her best friend and an OG baddie. She now supports vulnerable populations. My son flames through online bullies. You don’t want to know what he says. Trust me, I can get way worse lol.

My dream is to investigate a crime scene with my son. Revisiting the crime scene only, the morgue wasn’t an enjoyable experience for me. I’ll leave it there. The energy around death isn’t the most comfortable one.

Jeannette, Jeanne, Anjanette, all have the same meaning. God is gracious. I absolutely agree.

Fall Is a Season of Rest

I’m taking a break until the new year. I’m emotionally and physically drained. I’m grieving so much all at once, which seems to be the ammunition people use to stalk me. I’ve just learned that I’ve been stalked for so much of my life.

I’d like to focus on myself and the people who feel like safety and warmth, with zero intentions of causing harm. My midwives have seen me through and made me laugh uncontrollably at inappropriate times. I love it here.

It turns out I’m not the only one experiencing harassment and stalking. It’s sad that pain needs to even exist. It’s a blessing when you can transform it into an incredible life. I have a trip to Africa, which blows my mind. ME?! I’m blessed, we’re blessed & will continue to be. Unless you’re hateful. I’m not the one judging, God is. That’s His job, not ours. Karma has already started and it’s…yeah. Yikes. Lockdown has commenced. Happy Fall my beautiful people. Fall back, like the time will eventually.

One Nation Under God, for Which We Stand, With Liberty & Karma for All.

250 years were important enough to celebrate. Now is the time this country repents.

During a meeting I love, within a space that has supported us for years, my heart was completely broken. I left the meeting earlier than I anticipated because I knew I needed time to cry by myself. Discussing the Black experience in this world truly devastates me. I remember being called overly sensitive throughout my entire life. When I became the dominant one, I was hated. The same things people loved about me became the things they hated.

This summer, I learned from a healthcare provider that all my partners abused me. Not one didn’t abuse me. This was the same day as my brother’s birthday. Jason turned 48 years old. I’ve explained many of the topics that I will touch on here, but my brother is breathing down my neck this time of year. Being 49 with a 48-year-old sibling? Everyone gives you the side-eye. Tbh, I give my parents the side-eye because it’s them, not us. I almost gagged, so enough of that.

I wasn’t sure if I’d see my brother on his birthday. I lost so much weight in such a short time that I didn’t want him to think I’d vanish too. Our mom lost significant weight after being diagnosed with cancer. Mommy and I are Thelma & Louise. Sagittarius mother and her cusp baby daughter (Scorpio/Sag). We clashed like no other.

When I was younger, my mother encouraged me to say what was on my mind. I was not having a good time after my brother was born. That’s it. The stork dropped off a baby, but my mother’s belly is growing, ok. Things didn’t make sense as a child. Where did my daddy go? To Heaven, my mother would answer. What’s Heaven? I’d ask for the 11th time. “Where God lives.”

At this point, I’m looking at my mother like, ok, wth is going on here?! My mother, a self-proclaimed atheist, made this statement. I just knew we were all screwed. Again, things did not make sense to me. My mother wasn’t helping. My mom was a widow in her early 30s. When you have no answers, it hurts. Things don’t make sense; memories disappear. Our subconscious captures what brings us pain and might store it away. Far away, so that pain doesn’t hurt so much.

If everyday people could empty their own subconscious? This world would be close to perfect.

What if I told you that I felt I knew my brother before he was born? You’d think I’m crazy. Well, your family is crazy, so you should feel comfortable here LOL. Every one of us has a crazy family member. Crazy doesn’t equate with psychiatric disorders. Crazy exists without boundaries or borders. Crazy is prevalent in this modern-day society. If you want a full understanding of what I mean? Come visit Staten Island. Home of the brave. The epicenter of Have You Lost Your Damn Mind.

Staten Islanders know what I’m talking about. The gentleman who thought I was going to rob him, he knows too. People tend to behave like that when they’re intimidated. A six-foot-something man is afraid of a 5’3” woman who’s struggling to walk up the steepest hill. My brain still itches with this one.

Life After 9/11

Staten Island marked the 25th anniversary of September 11th at Postcards, its beautiful, year-round memorial honoring Staten Islanders whose lives were lost on 9/11 and in the aftermath. I didn’t have the courage to attend the memorial. My heart is still broken.

I had my first two-person MVA on my way home that evening before the ceremony. Thirty years of driving & no accident record, and my car was hit hard enough that it tilted a little bit. Jeep Wrangler tilts aren’t fun. I just had my moon phases tattoo completed. I was randomly cursed out by someone foaming at the mouth. I’m tired, y’all. The number of near accidents I’ve had is unprecedented. It’s either related to substance abuse or people texting on their phones.

I’m non-weight-bearing, so I guess God is definitely like SIT DOWN, DANG. I have identified spider bites. I went to the ER for the 199th time this year. I’m over it. I’m sitting down, just like all the other birthkeepers I’m in touch with. Without them, I’m not sure what I would do. My friends are dope-and annoying when they see me bearing weight. The whole community is full of city workers. People who died the fastest. The ones I cried over on my way back home.

So, with that being said, I will not be here because I am currently being stalked, again. I disconnected from DoulaMatch some time ago, but the scam calling started when I enrolled, and it continues to this day. DoulaMatch, Kim, was unethical when I contacted her. So, there’s that. Unfortunately, it’s something I’ve grown into.

Nurses eat their young. Hospitals consume the healthcare professionals who work there. Hospitals wish to make doula programs, quickly. No research, no knowledge of what we do, yet they create programs with wages that are not waging. I’ve seen hospitals slice the NYS Medicaid rate down to take the doula’s profits. I’ve mentioned this before, but now, let’s get into the tea. Healthcare professionals are not playing any games going forward. I just sit there like, damn.

Today, it was quite a conversation. My birthkeepers came all the way through. They didn’t want any smoke. I understood. I raised my hand and was given space to speak.

I want that smoke, so what’s up?

I mind my own business, and people call me the verbal assassin, Killa, serial killer-whoa. These names come from people who say I have a spiritual oozie.

It’s a Glock. I emptied it into the CORE people who needed to be addressed. Recoil where? Someone passed me the oozie. That was what actually happened. We don’t come to play. It’s Rainbow Six energy. The Black women have stood up. For ourselves first. For the individuals and families next. That umbrella of protection extends to everyone within the collective. We’re the global majority; we don’t do that minority thing. Community over collaboration? Oh no, that sounds competitive when the person behind the statement shows they can’t be trusted. Corporate energy is for-profit energy. Line-the-pockets-and-forget-the-community energy.

Richmond University Medical Center, here on Staten Island? Oh yes, they know me very well. They like to run because guilty people love to run. They scatter like roaches, only the collective has no issues with airing them out. This is what I shared within the meeting I attended. Birth traumas. This facility has caused irreparable harm to my families, and myself. Yet they refuse to come forward. But there’s a NICU expansion going down, so come support that. That’s an email I received from them. God bless America.

We were asked what was next. We completed a presentation; it’s something we’ve spent a great amount of time with.

My response: removing coercive control from every corner of the world. Fling the people into the ethers and be about our business. Doulas are a threat to the ones in charge. They are intimidated by us; that’s why there is this constant drive to help people understand that we are non-medical providers. The research shows that we, doulas, keepers of birth, make a huge impact on lowering health disparities, specifically Black maternal health disparities. The providers with God complex syndrome will find a way to be intimidated by that. Doulas don’t wish to integrate with that type of aggressive behavior that is called abuse. OB/GYN was a position men held. Women are taking over the field of OB/GYN, but if they receive training from the wrong people, they will be biased too.

The percentage of males entering the field of OB/GYN declined continually between 1973 and 2022. In 1973, 85% of OB/GYN faculty and 90% of residents were male. Over the next 50 years, there was almost a complete reversal of the gender composition of the specialty. In 2022, females constituted 85% of OB/GYN residents and 67.3% of faculty.
-Romero et al., 2025

Damn. That’s a lot different than what we’re used to. It doesn’t mean women don’t practice coercive control. I had a woman OB/GYN try to back me up against a wall.

To change things, they need to be tagged for deletion and removed. Not reporting this behavior is why so many doulas and healthcare providers continue to burn out. Trust me, it’s not just the money. That is a whole other story.

During our meeting, I asked that we just report them going forward. We’ve made every attempt to bring them to the table. We don’t align with the way they use policies and procedures to shield themselves. We believe in balanced scales. Reciprocity. Respect for us and our families who paid for our services.

Hospitals aren’t “home” to abusers. Unethical practices should be immediately reported. Healthcare professionals constantly fix the mistakes of upper management. They can take the ball; it’s in their court. We have better things to do, like pick the lint off our leggings. We are also not teaching anyone to run from any hospitals they choose to go to. Teaching expectant parents not to go to a specific hospital leaves other families at risk of experiencing what you are avoiding.

Stand for what you believe in. Sit if you haven’t been part of the collective experience. Showing up years and years after the fact is a reason for automatic dismissal. Just like how people treated us.

Birthkeepers are behind the scenes this fall, handling New York State and the rest of the entire universe, it feels like. Our lives look like showing up on Zoom, Teams, etc., in bonnets. It’s an accident at times; other times, we do not care. We are working on changing things for expectant families all over the world.

I’m continuing my journey of moonwalking out of the karmic return that is currently unfolding. Most days look like absolutely nothing but virtual meetings, which I love. I’m doing the things I’ve put off when life became too busy. I never ended my reigning championship of burnout. I transitioned from nursing to being a small business owner without time to fully breathe.

I would like to hold the little girl inside of me who didn’t have the words to say anything yet. The seven-year-old who was assaulted by a group of boys in the second grade. I am holding the woman who lost her mother, her best friend in the entire universe. My little spicy jalapeño held marginalized people for over 40 years as a public-school teacher in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The hurt she carried has been released & someone else can get it lol.

While my entire ancestry tears the roof off the healthcare system and many, many others—I will moonwalk into the bushes. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. When the shadows come into the light? Please look away. People call me the illuminator (Life Path number 1, Reflector in Quantum Human Design). I call myself Anjanette. I do not wish to engage with these concepts on paper.

I appreciate you being here. I wanted to introduce my family. Just a few names that have birthdays coming up too. I’m sending the biggest hugs. I’m immensely grateful for the love I received and the love I will receive in the future.

Only the good people will stand up. That I know; they always do.

Generations of Legacy, Protection & Unconditional Love

Dr. Hugh Milton Dash

My granddaddy. The gentlest man who played no games when it came to his family. His legacy is the protection that covers (almost) the entire family. Yikes. My granddaddy was born on

In 1933 America, my granddaddy, Dr. Hugh Milton Dash, graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, becoming one of only four African American graduates of the institution during its first fifty years.

The historical record, captured by a family member who wrote this brilliant piece, notes a “dearth of applicants,” but the number of Black applicants cannot be separated from the conditions that produced that number. Segregation, unequal access to quality education, economic barriers, and racial discrimination restricted Black Americans’ pathways into higher education and medicine long before medical-school applications were submitted. What might appear on paper as a shortage of applicants existed within a much larger shortage of opportunity. Hugh Milton Dash entered that landscape in 1933 and became a physician anyway.

My granddaddy is listed as Caucasian on his birth certificate, an offering from a white physician to my granddaddy’s beautifully brown mother. The doctor who delivered my grandfather stated, “This is the only way he will ever succeed in life.”

A Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) is a fully licensed physician, just like an MD, with the same ability to diagnose, prescribe, specialize, and practice medicine. DOs receive additional training in the musculoskeletal system and osteopathic manipulative medicine, with a whole-person approach to care.

Shirley Jeannette Dash Silas

My Mama! Our Matriarch, my muse. Born 12/9/45. After my first year, a beautiful baby named Heavenly was born on 12/9. A teacher for 40+ years in the public school system, supporting marginalized communities, leading little Black and brown children to the greatest of heights in the midst of the crack epidemic and while losing loved ones to AIDS. Her soul still remains here with us.

Her homegoing took place on 9/24/15. I held her hand, alone, scared, hurting, inconsolable. I wanted to keep her here longer. As a nurse, I felt I failed her. Just like the concept of energy in physics, her energy is not lost; she has transformed into a spiritual ninja & continues to be my best friend. I don’t expect her to be waiting in Heaven with a belt anymore. She understands my pain and will get turnt UP on anyone who tries me. Having a guardian angel really does make a difference. My mom tapped in so I can sit down. Eleven years later, grief doesn’t feel stifling anymore. I adore my mother. I pray she is my mother in each and every lifetime.

Percival Alergnon Silas

Our patriarch, my daddy. His birthday is 3/21/43. One of my favorite clients, Nakia Jackson, had her baby on 3/21/25. My father was a principal within education spaces. My mother and dad met and fell in love (I’m so disgusted, idk why) and married shortly after.

My father was a Vietnam War veteran. We lived in New Jersey until my dad passed away in June, while my mom was pregnant with my brother. I’m just learning about my dad’s side of the family tree. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to understand him more deeply. My dad was airlifted from NJ to Philly, where he passed away in under 24 hours. My mother came to the hospital after my father coded.

From the day we met, she told me I was her new bestie. Nakia is an amazing human being, an incredible mommy of many, and a TikTok Mommy inspirer. She recently did a brand deal with Pattern Beauty. Pattern Beauty was founded by actress, producer, and entrepreneur Tracee Ellis Ross, who is THEE Diana Ross’ daughter. The minute I think about Diana Ross, I can still hear the theme from the movie Mahogany. Pattern Beauty is one of my favorite brands. Kia has the healthiest hair I’ve seen in my life.

Please don’t go over there embarrassing me if you visit Kia. She has such a good heart and faces challenges whenever she speaks from her perspective. Social media is that way, but it better not be to her. Her pinned post, the video I took during labor, is up to 7.1 million views. That would make me physically ill. Kia casually acts like she isn’t HER. Please support my friend who is connected to my family.

Jeanne Frances Dash

The oldest sibling, my mother’s sister, and another force to be reckoned with. Born on 10/21/39, my aunt has the brains and beauty just like her younger sister, Shirley. Valedictorian of her graduating class. Debutante before my mother. She experienced trauma at a young age; she wasn’t the same after that. Another shining light, a NYC public school teacher for decades.

Her birthday is my healthcare anniversary. On 10/21/26, I will celebrate 26 years of healthcare experience. Registered nurse for 18 :) One month after this date, I will turn 50! 11/21/76 is my birthday. I’m blessed to have lived with my aunt as a young girl, teenager, and adult. She told me she loved me deeply. She warned me that one of my partners was being abusive toward me. Those words still carry on today. My aunt is here, has declined significantly, and my heart wants to be close to her. I pray that is possible, and I pray that my presence will give her comfort and safety.

I looked up my Aunt’s name for the first time today, 9/15/2026. Be careful about what you look for, seriously. The name Jeannette is a diminutive of Jeanne, which is the French feminine form of Jean. Jean itself originates from the Hebrew name Yochanan, meaning "Yahweh is gracious" or "God is gracious”. My aunt and I share the same name. What the helly.

Background information

Agent Orange & the Vietnam War

Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to destroy dense vegetation that could provide cover for opposing forces. More than 20 million gallons were obtained for military use, and the chemical mixture was contaminated with TCDD, a highly toxic form of dioxin that can persist in the environment and is recognized as a carcinogen.

Its legacy continued long after the spraying stopped. Exposure has been associated with cancers and other serious health problems, while research has also identified increased rates of birth defects among the children of exposed U.S. veterans. For veterans and families affected by Agent Orange, the consequences of the Vietnam War did not necessarily end when they came home. Many veterans developed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. military by several chemical companies; nine companies were involved in wartime production. The two names most associated with it are Dow Chemical and Monsanto (now Bayer). Dow and Bayer still exist today. My mother was able to receive financial compensation. That money funded my college education in full.

On September 7th, I met a beautiful couple who shared that they support Vietnam War veterans through the following website: Health Journeys

The husband that shared this website (anyone can use it :) is named Daniel. Daniel is my son’s middle name. The husband also shares the same birthday with my son. I moonwalked myself right out of there, expeditiously!

Research to learn more: Changes in the Numbers of Male and Female Obstetricians-Gynecologists and Their Implications

Birth & Beyond, NYC is taking a pause for the remainder of 2026. I’ll be focusing on advocacy for the remainder of 2026. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the year!